Go find your heart (take it back)
by black.k.kat
Summary: Obito wakes up. This is…not how it was supposed to go. (Wherein Obito is broken but not shattered, several [dozen] people want the Rokudaime dead, Rin makes a totally awesome Jedi ghost, and there are balcony scenes but no one is named Romeo. Or Juliet.)
1. Chapter 1

**Rating: **R (for safety)

**Warnings: SPOILERS** up to Chapter 699, language, Obito being an angsty badass, Obito being Mr. Exposition, mook deaths, etc.

**Word Count: **~7000

**Pairings: **future Kakashi/Obito, past one-sided Obito/Rin and Rin/Kakashi

**Summary:** Obito wakes up. This is…not how it was supposed to go.

(Wherein Obito is broken but not shattered, several [dozen] people want the Rokudaime dead, Rin makes a totally awesome Jedi ghost, and there are balcony scenes but no one is named Romeo. Or Juliet.)

**Notes:** This is an Obito character study that mutated wildly about a hundred words in. Also why I should never be allowed to write anything ever between the hours of 11 pm and 3 am. It turns into _massive_ amounts of exposition, and I am entirely at a loss as to how.

On another note: I love Rin. Honestly, she's probably my favorite female Naruto character after Tsunade. It really, really bugs me when people write her off as a fangirl, because she is in absolutely no way comparable to Sakura, and actually treated Obito like a _human being_ rather than a punching bag. (Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not an ardent Sakura fan. Rin is magnitudes more awesome, imho.) So she features here, and she's not evil. Sorry totally not sorry and all that jazz. :)

(Title from Tracy Chapman's _Remember the Tin Man_, which is one of my Kakashi/Obito headcanon songs.)

* * *

><p><em><span><strong>Go find your heart (take it back)<strong>_

Obito wakes to rough voices, ropes around his wrists, dead leaf litter below him, and a sharp rock digging into his kidneys.

As his last memory is of following Rin towards (hopefully) Paradise or the Great Beyond, this is more than a little disconcerting.

He lies still for a moment, sleep-limp and eyes closed to keep whoever tied him up—and really, at this point that could be anyone; both sides probably hate him equally—from realizing that he's conscious. There's no pause in the conversation, and it doesn't get any closer, so he assumes he's safe for the moment. A careful test of his bonds reveals that, yes, they really are rope, rough enough that they've already torn his skin and drawn blood. It's a touch of sloppiness that makes Obito frown inwardly, because he honestly can't imagine _anyone_ moronic enough to think that such simple knots would hold him. He still has his chakra, he still has his Sharingan—both of them, even, which is also odd, since he'd swear before any and all deities that he passed them on to Kakashi—and he can feel his mokuton coiled beneath his skin like a living thing, vibrant in the presence of a true forest.

There's not even some sort of barrier around him. It's like they just tied him up with a couple of pieces of string and then _left him_.

Obito considers this for a moment, and then decides it's probably safe to open his eyes.

The sight that greets him is…not what he was expecting.

It's dark, and the little clearing is made even darker by the vast Fire Country trees leaning over it. There's a campfire casting faint, shifting light over its surroundings and the faces of the four men hunched over it. They're all arguing, unkempt, sharp-voiced men in rough civilian clothing with equally rough weapons close at hand. Not one of them holds himself like a shinobi, and there's no way any shinobi worth _anything_ would allow his weapons to reach such a state—Obito can see the rust and nicks in the blades from here.

Bandits, then, and not even missing-nin.

It's almost _insulting_.

Just to give them the benefit of a doubt—since it's possible they're simply acting, or possibly under a henge, though Obito likes to think he would be observant enough to notice something like that—Obito stays perfectly still and tries to catch what they're saying. It's made easier by the fact that he's only about five yards from them, at the edge of the tree line.

"—doesn't matter!" the largest of the bunch is saying. He's brawny in a manner that's just starting to go to seed, if the beginnings of his potbelly are anything to go by. "Even if he's not, _they_ don't know that!"

"But they'll _check_," the scrawny beanpole of a man across from Potbelly hisses. "Isn't that what these shinobi are famous for? You torture 'em for hours and all they'll spit out is their ninja registration number. If we make something up, they'll check it and realize we're bluffing out our damn asses."

_010886_, Obito thinks automatically, and is almost startled that he still remembers his registration. It's been…a very long time since he was issued it, or since he had any cause to use it. But if that's the sum of what these men know about ninja protocol, they're clearly not shinobi themselves. He almost wants to laugh. The scourge of the ninja world, brought low (however temporarily) by bandits. Not even very thorough ones at that.

The third man huffs out a garbled laugh, short and nasty, and fingers the long scar that slants clear across his face. "Konoha is just full of bleeding hearts, though," he says lazily. "Maybe we wouldn't have any luck in Taki, or Kiri, but Konoha? All we have to say is that we've got one of their precious shinobi and they'll be eating out of our hands. Easy enough to arrange to do the trade directly with that Hokage of theirs—for safety reasons, like."

That gets a quick giggle from the last bandit. "And when the one-eyed bastard comes slinking out the gate to get his ninja back, _slice_! Our bounty!"

"Knock it off," Beanpole growls. "You think this is a _joke_? Some kind of pleasure stroll in the moonlight? We're going to kill _Copy-Nin Kakashi_."

_Of course you are,_ Obito thinks, resigned. At this point he would be more surprised to meet someone who _doesn't _want to kill Kakashi, who still excels at pissing people off in the most creative of ways, if in a somewhat different manner than when he was thirteen. Obito has been living off rumors and plots for the last two decades—he's kept track. _Especially_ of Kakashi.

Some habits are harder than others to break, after all. Some not even Zetsu or Madara could touch.

"Settle down," Potbelly snaps in return. "Both of you. Our esteemed _guest_ will pass as a Konoha shinobi just fine—they're not going to be looking any closer than we want them to. All they need is a glimpse and the bastard's weapon. Who else but a shinobi'd use something like that? And even if they don't buy it, Motoki's right. Konoha is full of bleeding hearts, and if they've got a chance to save a shinobi captured in the war, even if he's not one of theirs, they'll take it. This'll work. So quit your yapping before my ears start bleeding."

Well, that's more than clear enough. Obito rolls his eyes, sits up, and easily unknots the ropes. They fall away, pathetically simple, and it's all Obito can do not to roll his eyes again. Really, a _genin_ could have gotten out of those. A _brain-damaged_ genin, at that.

"Oh, I don't know," he says, rising to his feet and watching with dark amusement as all four men jump and flail for their weapons. "Konoha is a bit more unpredictable than you're thinking. A bit more ruthless, too. You seem to be forgetting that they're _shinobi_."

"What—but—you—you were tied up!" Scar splutters.

Obito snorts and tosses the ropes at his feet. "You guys aren't even worth killing," he says, disgusted. "And you're trying to go after _Kakashi_? I should let you, just to see how fast he wipes the floor with your pathetic asses. I'd give you five seconds. _Tops_."

His brain is already going, far beyond the need to pay any sort of attention to the group in front of him. So the war is over, and since they're all still in existence, Obito is going to assume Naruto won. It's also probably safe to presume that Madara didn't pull a miraculous reappearance, as Obito halfway expected him to, and use the opening Kaguya made to wipe out the Alliance. Konoha is still standing, and apparently they've made Kakashi their Rokudaime. It's…not entirely unexpected, but still surprising. Mostly in that Kakashi _accepted_ the post, but then, he's always been one to do his duty, regardless of personal feelings.

Almost absently, Obito catches a knife aimed for his throat between two fingers and lets it drop, then moves in a blur too fast to see. Mokuton could take them all out in one blow, but they're not worth the chakra expenditure. Obito breaks Beanpole's neck, cracks Scar and Giggles' heads together hard enough to put them down permanently, and then rounds on Potbelly with a smile that is most definitely not nice.

"Normally," he says conversationally, as though simply continuing his earlier train of thought, "I really _would_ leave you up to Kakashi, but I'm sure he's short on time to read his porn as it is. Far be it from me to infringe on that any further, right?"

Potbelly howls in fear, chucks his sword blindly at Obito, and turns to run. Obito allows himself one more eye-roll, darts forward, and crushes his windpipe with a knife-hand blow. The bandit goes down, choking for breath, and Obito stares at him for a moment before turning on his heel and walking away. A familiar black shakujo with six rings is leaning against a tree beyond the fire, and he pauses briefly to contemplate it before shrugging, shouldering it, and setting off into the darkness.

He's alive, somehow, and the world has continued on without him. It's probably not the same, but somehow Obito suspects that it's not all that different, either.

And if someone's trying to kill Kakashi, kill the _Rokudaime_, that means trouble.

Obito likes trouble. It tends to be…interesting.

* * *

><p>"Damn it, Rin," Obito mutters, sinking back against the bole of a particularly large tree and rubbing a hand over his face. He thinks he hears a giggle somewhere far off, soft and sweet and familiar enough to make his chest ache, but otherwise there's no answer. Not as to why he's still alive (alive again?) when he distinctly remembers the feeling of his body crumbling to ash. Not as to why Kakashi's ascension has brought his enemies crawling out of the woodwork in goddamn <em>droves<em>—though Obito guesses that's a combination of Kakashi's winning personality, his thirty-year career as a high-ranking shinobi, and his sudden visibility—all of them out for blood. And certainly not as to why he's been dumped in the middle of this whole mess. Penance, maybe? That could be it. Rin was always a supporter of people paying their dues, and god knows Obito has quite the karmic debt to work off.

He _knows_ this is Rin's doing, the same way he knows the sky is blue and the sun will rise in the morning. He just can't say _how_ he knows.

Two days of traveling, and in the course of it Obito has encountered three more groups clearly on their way to Konoha to bag its Hokage. Not counting the incompetent assholes he woke up with, of course, because Obito is fairly certain they don't even register as an aggravation in the grand scheme of things. No, these were missing-nin or freelance shinobi, trained and hardened and slightly more difficult to dispatch, though Obito had done so regardless.

He's practical, after so long. These groups are after Kakashi, and as amusing as it would be to let them go and then watch Kakashi pound all of them into the ground without breaking a sweat, someone only has to get lucky once. If Obito lets these teams go, one of the teams he _hasn't_ encountered—and there are more, of course; that's just basic logic—will have that much more of a chance to strike. And Kakashi has lived through the war, used Obito's eyes to achieve some sort of victory, survived the aftermath, and reached the position Obito always aimed for. Obito is hardly about to let him die now.

Honestly, Obito has absolutely no intention of "returning to life", as it were. He's done enough, harmed enough people, destroyed enough lives, and placed himself firmly at the top of probably every single sentient creature's shit-list. Death is nice, safe, anonymous, and gives him the freedom to move however he wants. And if he's going to be cleaning house for Kakashi, he needs all the maneuverability he can get. At some point, someone's going to realize that Copy-Nin Kakashi, Hero of the Sharingan, won't be taken out by cannon fodder, and they're actually going to send someone competent.

Obito will be there to stop them when they do. It's one debt he can repay, one little bit of red washed off his hands every time he keeps Kakashi alive.

Maybe that's what Rin sent him back for. Maybe that's why she dumped him in this place. She always did have a rather blinding soft spot for the bastard.

Right now, though, all Obito can think about is that he's cold and hungry and tired, with a headache building behind his eyes. Fire Country is generally warm, but the nights still get chilly, and judging by the touch of ice in the air they're closing in on winter. Somehow, he's wearing the uniform of the Alliance, more or less in one piece, and Obito honestly doesn't want to contemplate that too closely, doesn't want to wonder if he's wearing someone else's body. It _feels_ like his, bears all the same scars and defects and imperfections, but Obito knows better than anyone except Tobirama himself how Edo Tensei works, and it's possible.

Except for the hunger. Except for the headache. Except for the weariness pulling at his very bones.

Obito isn't sure a zombie would feel all of that.

Letting out a soft breath, Obito wraps his arms a little more tightly around himself and curls back into the slight depression in the trunk, hoping to conserve at least a little bit of body heat. He could call up a Katon jutsu, or start a campfire, but he's been operating covertly for too long to break the habits of stealth now. Especially when he doesn't know who exactly is out in the forest, or who will find him if he lights up a beacon like that. He has a vague approximation of his location—northern Fire Country, heading east along the border with Rice Paddy Country—but little beyond that, since he's stayed about as far from signs of human habitation as possible. And without more information, he's not going to risk a fire. It's not so cold that he'll freeze to death, just…uncomfortable.

Obito is used to uncomfortable, by now.

Of their own volition, his fingers come up to trace the deep, harsh scars carved into the right side of his face. They are…grotesque, and Obito wonders, now that his eyes aren't clouded with hate, now that he's stopped lying to himself at every turn, if they aren't a very large part of his reason for always wearing a mask. For secrecy, yes, and for misdirection, but…how long has it been since he actually looked in a mirror? How long since he's actually _seen_ himself?

_Years_, he thinks a little bleakly. _Maybe a full decade. Maybe two._

He hates them, these scars. He always has. They're a mark of failure, of how he attempted to save a teammate and couldn't even do that right. Because of that, he wasn't there for anything that followed. Hell, he was the _cause_ of most of the tragedy afterwards. But—maybe if he'd been a little faster, maybe if he'd managed to jump clear of the rocks along with Kakashi, he could have saved Rin. Maybe he could have become Hokage, stopped the massacre of the Uchiha clan, halted Madara's plans for Sasuke before they even started.

So much horror, the majority of it by his own hand, and if he'd just been faster, been _better_—

But it's too late for regrets. Twenty years too late. Too late the second he killed in the name of some twisted dream, since he buried his Will of Fire beneath whispers of a perfect world bought with blood. Since he allowed himself to be twisted and used, since he didn't open his eyes enough to see Madara's manipulation for what it was. Since he _got Rin killed_, just by existing.

That hurts the most. Madara arranged her death because of _him_, and if he hadn't been such a good, valuable little _tool_—

_Shh,_ Rin's voice whispers in his ear, soft and sad, and he's _missed_ her, missed her so damned much. She was always his friend, regardless of his feelings for her. He loved her, _loves_ her, but more than that she was always there for him, even when no one else was. She smiled at him and bandaged his wounds and was always ready with a cheerful grin and a kind word, and that more than anything is what Obito has mourned these last lonely, barren years. Kakashi was never really a friend, no matter how Obito wanted him to be—rival in shinobi work, rival for Rin's affections, rival for Minato's attention, rival because he was actually _someone_ even at the age of twelve, and Obito, from one of the most powerful and feared clans in existence, directly related to Uchiha Madara himself, was absolutely no one.

Kakashi could have been a friend, if he'd unbent a little more and Obito had held himself back just a bit. They could have been _great_, he and Kakashi and Rin together, could have changed the world and made it better if only they hadn't been…

If only they hadn't been children, lost in themselves except when circumstances forced them to be otherwise. They all sacrificed, all gave up so much for each other and for their village, but they were _children_ no matter their training. They fought and died because of it, metaphorically or literally, because they were part of a war between old men kept safe behind stone walls.

Obito hates the world for that, for what it did to them, and regardless of new goals and a new outlook on life, he suspects he always will. He's spent too long filled with hatred, and now he can't _not_ hate. Maybe, were he like Naruto, strong and unyielding, he could let it go, but he's _not_. He doesn't think he ever was, or ever will be.

"Rin," he whispers, loud in the dark stillness of a silent midnight. "Rin, I miss you. Why am I here? Why did you leave me alone?"

_Never alone, silly_, she whispers to him, gentle against his ear. _You think I'd leave you on your own again? Impossible._

Obito curls his arms around his knees, fighting off the shivers that rack his body, and tucks his head down into the curve of his elbow. The headache is still there, still lurking, and his stomach churns from lack of food, but he stays still. Penance, maybe, though the thought makes Obito huff out a wry breath. As if there's anything he can do to even _begin_ to make amends.

"What am I here for?" he asks again, and to his horror his voice breaks halfway through.

_Oh, Obito._ She sounds sad, so sad, and that's not right. Rin should never be sad. Back when he was a kid, he'd almost been prepared to let her go, to let her be happy with Kakashi because that's what she wanted, except Kakashi only ever saw her as a medic-nin, as assistance in the field and a weak link to compensate for, and Obito couldn't _stand_ that. He loved her and she loved Kakashi, and Kakashi looked right through her as if she wasn't the kindest person in the entire world, as though she wasn't perfect in pretty much every way, flaws and all. So he hadn't given up, because Kakashi obviously _wasn't good enough_, and…

And the world went to hell because of it. Because of _him._

It's especially ironic given that Obito always prided himself on being different from the rest of his clan. He helped people, he was cheerful, he tried never to let things get him down, he had friends outside the clan, and he tried to treat everyone with respect. He wasn't some utterly arrogant douchebag back then, but he _became_ one. He became the very worst sort of Uchiha, the kind he had always fought so hard against as a kid, and that _burns_. It's disgusting, what depths he allowed himself to sink to.

But not anymore. Never again.

Obito takes a breath, holds it for a count of five, and lets it out. Rin's trick, for whenever he was upset or on the verge of losing his temper. He does it again, a third time, and then raises his head to stare out into the darkness.

"So," he says after a moment. "I guess we're saving Kakashi, then. Bet he's got his hands full with all of these people trying to kill him. Just like old times, huh?"

Rin laughs at him, high and sweet, and Obito smiles despite himself, remembering that day in the training grounds, Rin bandaging his wounds and telling him that she believed in him, believed that he could be Hokage if he just tried hard enough.

He loves her. He loves her so much, whether as a friend or something else, and if he can't have the latter, he's more than happy to accept the former.

_Go to sleep, Obito,_ she tells him warmly. _I'll keep watch._

There's chakra around him, as familiar as his own even after so many years, and Obito lets out a soft sigh, tucks himself back a little more against the tree, and closes his eyes. His mokuton stirs like a living thing, tempered and augmented by the forests around it, but Obito doesn't try to rein it in. There's a whisper, a rustle, and warm darkness closes in around him. The tree surrounds him, a cocoon of wood imbued with the heat of the Fire Country sun, and Obito finally allows himself to relax and give in to the weariness pulling him down.

He can't remember the last time he slept so well.

* * *

><p>Konoha is still much the same as the last time he saw it as Tobi, a short while after Pein's failed invasion. The only real difference is the sixth face on the Mountain, and Obito stares at it for a long moment, disproportionately amused by the fact that Kakashi's carved head, his legacy that will remain for as many years as Konoha exists, is <em>still<em> sporting a mask. Honestly, that's just…

So very, very like Kakashi.

(Maybe, just maybe, he's missed Kakashi too. But only kind of.)

There are guards at the gate, and ANBU covertly patrolling the wall, so Obito pauses just within the tree-line to weigh his options. He has absolutely no intention of letting anyone know he's back, even if he is slightly curious as to how everything turned out and how everyone is doing, and to stay completely hidden in a ninja village takes a fair amount of work, even for him. The best way to go about this is probably to hide in plain sight, as it were, and the sight of the ANBU team gives him an idea. Turning away from the gate, Obito slides back into the shadows of the forest and heads for the Hokage Mountain.

When Konoha was first built, the Shodaime himself carved out huge caverns and tunnels, to be used by civilians if Konoha was ever invaded. They've been expanded over the years, by enterprising or bored shinobi and officially sanctioned craftsmen alike, creating a veritable maze of passages winding through the mountain. Obito has mapped them all, explored each one in a fit of boredom while waiting for several plans to bear fruit, and he still remembers the passages well enough to navigate without misstep. The ANBU passages are smaller, more twisting and treacherous than the rest, with many more places to get turned around and hopelessly lost, and even more sharp corners to come upon someone unawares, but Obito moves through them like a ghost, alert for any sounds. Only once does he encounter another shinobi, and it's easy enough to use Kamui and duck into the wall for the handful of seconds it takes for them to pass.

The ANBU building can't really be termed such, as it's more a set of tunnels with rooms opening off of them. Obito keeps to the shadows, but it's a bit before midday with no current threats to the village, so the area is mostly empty, with a mere handful of jounin grouped in one of the meeting rooms. Obito slides past them, and ducks into a room down the passage without bothering to open the door. Kamui is solid gold for breaking and entering, truly.

From there, it's easy enough to find a uniform and a mask. Obito picks one styled after a dog, because it amuses him and because there are more of those hanging on the wall than any other. He abandons unnecessary plans and forms new ones, and decides to pick up a few more masks with different images, just in case he needs to switch between them. For a moment, he contemplates discarding his shakujo in favor of the standard tantō, but decides not to at the last moment. He's been trained to use a good number of weapons, but his skill with a sword is just about average, and with staffs and pole arms he's just shy of brilliant. If he needs something with range, he still has shuriken within his Kamui dimension, and beyond that he's more than dangerous enough without a weapon, given his abilities.

Teleportation comes simply, faster than ever thanks to having both of his eyes rather than just one, and Obito pauses within his dimension for a moment to wonder if Kakashi still has his. Probably, if the face on the mountain is anything to go by, but maybe someone took artistic license with that. It makes something in Obito's chest twist a little unpleasantly, to think that his return to life has taken away Kakashi's greatest weapon. Obito has done that enough.

(He will never, ever forget Madara approaching him with his original eye, the brief bolt of fear that raced through him, because what if that meant Kakashi was dead? What if he'd failed yet again to save a teammate? Because it was his doing, _his fault_, and what if—)

He expects the mask to feel familiar, comforting, because he's spent the majority of his life hiding behind one, but instead it just feels…stifling. Like a regression, a return of regrets, strong and overwhelming. But Obito shakes it off, dresses in the ANBU uniform and settles the dog mask into place. It cuts off his peripheral vision, narrows his line of sight, but that's fine. It's necessary for this to work.

After all, no one will look twice at an ANBU saving the life of the Hokage. That's what they're supposed to do, one of the things they're meant for. And by the time someone realizes that the man in the dog mask isn't an ANBU at all, he'll be back in hiding and capable of switching to another mask to keep below the radar.

The tattoo is easy enough to fake, given the scars on his arm. Obito carries a bit of red ink, just in case he needs to create seals on the fly, and he applies it carefully, giving himself the appearance of a basic ANBU mark that's been ruined by an injury—common enough circumstances, in a shinobi's line of work.

"Well?" he murmurs, once he's done, capping the bottle and stowing it away. "How do I look?"

Rin giggles at him. _Handsome_, she says warmly.

_Only with my face covered_, Obito thinks, mouth twisting unhappily, but he's been a shinobi too long for vanity and shuts that thought away. He doesn't bother to say it out loud, because he _knows_ what Rin's reaction to self-deprecation is, especially coming from him. She's always been gentle, but she's fierce as hell, too, with a will unlike any Obito has ever known.

"Finally you see the light," is his response, wry and joking because even now that's his fallback, his retreat whenever anything hits too close to home. Joke and flail and draw the attention somewhere else, _anywhere_ else, even if you have to act like an idiot to do so. It's always worked for him in the past.

_Oh, Obito,_ she says again, but this time it's more amused than sad. _Always, always handsome. Not quite a lady-killer like Kakashi, but—_

"Oi," Obito protests, feeling heat creeping up his cheeks. Of course Rin would be able to make him feel like a twelve-year-old again, awkward and half a size too big for his skin. "I spent two-thirds of my life in a _cave_. I'd like to see Bakashi do any better under those circumstances, thank you."

_You never needed to compete with him, Obito. You're perfect as you are. _

He wishes he could believe that.

With a soft sigh, Obito pushes to his feet and makes sure everything is in place. The shakujo is a bit out of the ordinary, but he's not quite the only shinobi to use one, and as long as he sticks to the more basic jutsus and refrains from using mokuton, his identity should be safe. Uchiha Obito is most emphatically dead, after all.

He heads straight for the wall, barely even earning a second glance from the shinobi there. ANBU are a common enough sight, and they don't answer to the gate guards in the name of staying completely covert. It's how Danzo got away with his Root ANBU for so long; people see the mask and simply stop asking questions. Obito even gets a brief wave from a brown-haired tokujo in the street, one of his Academy classmates.

It's…eerie. Even more so than fighting a war against them, and just for a moment Obito allows himself to wonder if this is how it would be, had Madara and Zetsu never found him. Would he be an ANBU, respected and well-regarded? Would he return to the village, go to deliver his report to the Hokage, and find Kakashi lounging behind the desk, waiting to greet him?

Obito pushes those thoughts away as well. There's no meaning in them, not here. Not now.

Once he's in the village proper, he decides not to take unnecessary risks, and slips back into the shadows, keeping a close eye on his surroundings. The people look happy enough, calm and cheerful as they go about their business, and the shinobi he sees are relaxed, at ease. Clearly, things are going well, even with the war only recently passed. Within the last year or two, Obito suspects, given the attitudes, though he hasn't had a chance to check the date yet.

Loud laughter draws his attention, making him pause in the shadow of a stack of crates as he glances up the street. Bright blond hair all but glows in the sun, and Naruto slings his arm around the shoulder of the dark-haired boy walking beside him. Obito's cousin doesn't even attempt to throw him off, just rolls his eyes and looks away to hide his faint smile. On Naruto's other side, Sakura waves a stack of papers at the two of them, clearly annoyed, and then amusedly resigned when Naruto grins at her and says something with a grin.

He and Sasuke are both sporting prosthetic right arms, Obito notes with a faint pang of regret. Another tragedy to be laid at his door? More than likely. Most of the tragedies in the last twenty years can be firmly placed in the category of _his fault_.

"Sai knows where we're meeting?" Sakura asks as they make their way past. "Naruto, you didn't forget to tell him again, did you?"

"I didn't!" Naruto protests. "That was _one time_—"

Sasuke snorts, but half a second later his head whips up, and he half turns to stare at the spot Obito had been occupying a moment before.

Safe on the edge of a fire escape across the street, Obito allows himself one slow breath out. Too close.

"Teme?" Naruto asks, following his friend's gaze. "Is something wrong?" He's a little bit tenser than he was a moment ago, ready for anything, and Sakura has her hands curled into fists. No matter how long this stretch of peace has been, they clearly haven't lost their edge.

Sasuke pauses for just another moment, dark eyes narrow and wary, and then slowly turns away. "…Nothing," he says after a second. "Just…shadows. I thought I saw something."

"Because you're a paranoid bastard," is Naruto's good-natured complaint as he drops his arm back over Sasuke's shoulders and pulls him along, though he casts another look at the crates as well. "Come on, if we don't get there on time Sai and Captain Yamato will _never_ let us forget it."

"If they even _try_ comparing us to Kakashi-sensei again, I'll punch them both," Sakura declares, shaking a threatening fist. It's truly amusing to see just how many people suddenly dive out of the street in front of her and take cover. Even more so given how she doesn't appear to notice.

"Hn." Sasuke takes one more look around the street, eyes skipping right over Obito's hiding place, before he allows himself to be dragged away.

Obito decides that he's taken enough risks for one day and turns to the Administrative Building. He doesn't quite dare use Kamui with Team 7—all of whom are very familiar with it—so close, so he picks a shunshin instead, vanishing in a whirl of leaves the way he hasn't in _years_ and reappearing in the trees behind the Academy. The jutsu is unfamiliar, closer to something his Sharingan has copied rather than something he's learned himself even though Minato did teach it to them, and nowhere near as smooth as Kamui, but decent enough.

He pauses under the cover of the leaves, concentrating, and feels the faint, impossibly familiar flicker of chakra coming from the Hokage's office. It takes effort not to let the bleed-through happen, overlapping his and Kakashi's sight even though they each have their own set of eyes now, rather than a single shared pair. But it's a relief, too, to know that Kakashi is still in possession of Kamui, that he has at least that much defense against assassins beyond what skills he gained on his own.

With a soundless sigh, Obito settles back against the tree trunk, high enough up to be invisible to even a canny observer, and closes his eyes. With his mokuton twisting beneath his skin, he can feel the area around him, the trees and plants right down to the blades of grass, and he sets to sorting through the excess of information, searching for threats.

If he's going to do this, if he's going to try, he might as well give it his all. Maybe it won't be for life, but maybe it will.

There are worse ways to work off his debt, honestly.

* * *

><p>This first attack comes barely five hours later, just as Obito is starting to get stiff. He feels the sudden flurry of footsteps across the branches and bolts to his feet, even as four dark shapes go flying past in formation. Three men and a woman, dressed entirely in dark colors and sporting scratched hitai-ate, Obito takes in in a rush, and they're headed straight for the Hokage's window. A brute force approach, then. Unless…<p>

Obito hurls his shakujo like a spear, and it catches the rearmost man right in the spine, punching through both cloth and skin to impale him completely. He shrieks as he goes down, making one of the others spin, but Obito is already on them, lashing out with fists and feet. The Sharingan registers even the tiniest movements, catalogues and analyzes them, and in the space of three blows Obito can see through the woman's style. He ducks around her, blocks, and lunges, and then takes the opening she leaves when she goes in for a low block. One hard roundhouse kick to the head puts her down, and Obito bounds upwards after the other two who are already at the window.

It's open, of course, because nothing in Obito's life can ever be easy.

But the other ANBU, the guards from inside the office, are suddenly there, blocking the opening, and Obito latches on to the trailing one, grabs the windowsill with one hand, and uses his free arm to get a grip on the missing-nin's head and break his neck.

He lets the man drop, channels just a touch of chakra into his feet, and gets a grip on the wall. Pitching his voice a bit higher than is natural, Obito tells the closest ANBU, a woman with long purple hair, "I'll check for any stragglers. You've got the Hokage?"

The woman nods sharply. "We were alerted when we heard the first one scream," she says. "Thank you for the warning."

In shinobi-speak, that means "thanks for not letting us get caught with our pants around our ankles, we appreciate it". Obito just barely restrains a snort, inclines his head to her, and uses a shunshin to put him in the main lobby of the building just as a pair of women—both very pretty and _very_ well-endowed—are making their way towards the stairs. They both startle and gasp, exactly as Obito would expect tow civilian women—merchants, by their dress—to act, but the one on the right is carrying a small bag that smells just a little too herbal to be perfume.

Doubtless Kakashi, with his nose, would catch it before anyone else, but Obito isn't willing to let them get that far. He lunges, slow enough that they both have time to react, and is proved right when the blonde on the left goes for a kunai and the other one, a redhead, jerks a canister out of her bag. Obito dives between them, comes up at their backs, and hits them both at the base of the skull with enough force to knock them out, though he takes care to leave these ones alive. Maybe Ibiki can find out who they're from. Obito doesn't have the patience.

There's a whisper of movement, just quiet enough that most people would miss it, and Obito glances up to see a pair of ANBU leaping down the steps. He salutes them just shy of mockingly and darts back outside, circling the building to snatch up his shakujo and then flinging himself back into the trees, letting his mokuton pull him into the trunk of the largest one nearby. If he heard Naruto right earlier, Konoha's mokuton-user is currently off duty, and it's not exactly a type of jutsu that's commonly checked for, so Obito assumes that he's safe enough for the moment.

Leaning back against the far wall of his little bolt-hole, Obito lets out a careful breath. It…worked. Not exactly _subtly,_ but that's not really the point here. He's officially dead—he doesn't _have_ to be subtle as far as his presence goes. Just about his identity, and that's easy enough to keep under wraps.

Totally beside the point, it's going to be _exceedingly_ amusing to watch all of Konoha's ANBU run around like headless chickens trying to locate one of their own and failing miserably.

Rin giggles, soft and light beside his ear, and Obito closes his eyes with a soft chuckle of his own.

After all, _reformed_ doesn't particularly have to mean _nice_, and _repentant_ is in no way equivalent with _perfect_. Obito wouldn't particularly want it to be, either.

This? This is going to be _fun._


	2. Chapter 2

**Rating: **R-ish

**Warnings: SPOILERS** up to Chapter 699, language, Obito being awesome but emotionally constipated, Kakashi being an angsty tricksy asshole, Rin being a cheeky matchmaker, shameless mother hen!Genma, mook deaths, etc.

**Word Count: **~6200

**Pairings: **future Kakashi/Obito, past one-sided Obito/Rin and Rin/Kakashi

**Notes:** Omfg, I hate Kakashi. He's _ridiculously_ hard to write in character, and I'd forgotten this. Never again. Argh. But Genma is awesome.

And now I want to write a Gai/Genma fic. Shut up, okay? I_ know_.

* * *

><p><em><span><strong>Go find your heart (take it back)<strong>_

"You know, Hokage-sama, it would be easier to protect your ungrateful ass if you actually _took the assassins trying to kill you seriously._"

Genma is annoyed. Kakashi counts this as something of a personal victory, because it's very, very hard to get Genma riled up even under the direst of circumstances. For the most part, he has a joke or a dry quip in response to _everything_, and it's only now, six months after Kakashi's appointment brought him sharply into the world's focus (and crosshairs), that the man's temper is starting to fray.

Taking into account how in those six months roughly fifty people have attempted to kill the Rokudaime now that he's entirely public and mostly stationary, Kakashi is honestly impressed. He's always known Genma had a level head, but this is above and beyond his expectations.

As it is, Kakashi slouches a little further into his big, squishy, obscenely comfortable chair and plasters on his most earnest expression. "But Genma, I am! Can't you tell? This is my serious face."

Genma gives him a look that would send lesser men to their knees, begging for forgiveness. "I _wouldn't know_," he drawls pointedly, crossing his arms over his chest. "As I've never actually _seen_ your face, Kakashi."

Kakashi looks him over, head to toes in a long, deliberate sweep, and then beams. "Well," he offers languidly, "if we're lobbying for the removal of clothing, I really think you should go first. I've always been a fan of instant gratification."

From where he's slouched against the far wall, Raidou makes a noise that's just a hair too polite to be a threat and straightens, very casually dropping one hand to rest on the hilt of his poisoned sword. He doesn't say anything, but the faint narrowing of his eyes somehow abruptly brings the wide swath of scars on his face into sharp relief. ANBU is rife with legends as to how he got them. A suspiciously large number have to do with a captured Genma, pools of acid, several dozen dead Kiri jounin, and the fact that anyone who flirts with Genma mysteriously gets assigned missions in the ass-end of nowhere. Circumstantially, of course.

Even though he's Hokage and technically their lord and master, Kakashi can still tell when a strategic retreat is in order. He looks away, playing at casualness, and his gaze settles on Yugao, who's watching the scene with a distinctly unimpressed air. "Ah, Yugao!"

The trouble, Kakashi thinks as he watches her transfer that flat gaze to him, with working with his old comrades is that they tend to know all his tricks before he can even pull them. He misses the wide-eyed little recruit she used to be, all "yes senpai" and "no senpai" and eager-to-please personality.

"Yes, Hokage-sama?" she asks politely enough. He can't see her brow arch behind her cat-mask, but he can imagine it.

"That ANBU, the one who noticed the attackers. Who was it?"

She goes still for a moment—a long moment, far longer than it should be, given the simplicity of the question. That makes Genma look over at her sharply, lean frame subtly tensing, and Kakashi raise his head, uncovered eye narrowing. "Yugao?" the tokujo asks tersely.

Yugao shakes her head. "I can't find him," she says, sounding frustrated. "He was wearing a dog mask, and he used a spear of some sort, but I didn't get a close look at either him or his weapon. No one else seems to know who he was, either. I've put out the word for whoever it was to come forward, but so far there's nothing."

Kakashi looks away to hide his frown, dropping the pretense of geniality for the moment. That's…unusual. ANBU might be an anonymous organization from the outside, but from within they're all just as quick to claim their accomplishments as the next shinobi, and spotting an attack on the Hokage—both frontal and covert—is hardly a little thing.

"Bloodlines?" Genma asks. His voice is even, but Kakashi has known him since they were children. He was Gai's squad-mate as a genin, Minato's bodyguard when Kakashi was a jounin, and then one of Kakashi's more frequent teammates in ANBU. Right now, Genma is concerned, suspicious. Despite his laidback nature, he takes his position as Commander of the Hokage Guard Platoon seriously. "Any sort of abilities we can use to identify him?"

Yugao considers it, then shakes her head. "He was fast," she offers. "Almost as fast as Kakashi-senpai, but he only used taijutsu that I saw, and his…I think it was a staff of some kind. He had scars, though, I believe. On his right arm."

It's Kakashi's turn to narrow his eyes, because even if he's been out of ANBU for years he still keeps up with its members, since they're generally more of a challenge in a spar than the regular jounin. And as Hokage, he has a full roster at his disposal, so he should know the identity of every shinobi currently serving. But to the best of his knowledge, there are only a handful of people who can rival him for speed. Genma is one. Yamato is another. The rest he's more distantly familiar with, but he does know they were all out on missions, more or less to a man, when the attack happened. None of them would have disappeared so quickly, either, especially without claiming credit.

"But he stopped them," Raidou points out, low but certain. "He took out three attackers where we could see him and two more we didn't even suspect were in the village. After that he merited at least a face-to-face meeting with the Hokage, but he didn't stick around to acknowledge it. I…don't think it was done with bad intentions."

Genma snorts, but his posture is easing and there's mirth creeping back into his eyes. "Mm. Maybe he's just shy," he drawls, flipping a senbon through his fingers and then tucking it into the corner of his mouth. Kakashi absently hopes that it's not a poisoned one. Genma has been known to forget to check, if only occasionally. Luckily Raidou is as good with antidotes as his partner is with poisons. "Given the circumstances, though, Hokage-sama, I think it would be best if you took the rest of the night off. We'll make another sweep of the village and reinforce the perimeter patrols, but I'd like you safely out of sight while we do so."

Kakashi arches a brow at his friend, silently asking him if he's forgotten just who Kakashi is. Kages are some of the strongest shinobi in their village, and Kakashi is certainly no exception. There are very, very few assassins able to get the drop on him, and even fewer who can maintain their advantage for longer than a couple of seconds. He has quite literally faced down gods, and there aren't many who can say the same. Most of those who can live in Konoha, and the worst they'll do to him is steal his Icha Icha. Granted that's still fairly terrible, but Kakashi is confident he'd survive. And get suitable revenge, of course.

After a long moment, Genma huffs out a sigh, rolls his eyes, and waves a hand. It could be either the dismissal of a private thought or a slightly weary acknowledgement, but Kakashi chooses to take it as the latter. Given that concession, he's content to nod and rise from his chair. "All right. Who am I to say no to an early night with no plans?"

"Yeah, yeah. Go home and cuddle your porn, Hokage-sama." Genma waves absently and beckons Yugao forward to accompany their leader, even as he heads for the window to speak with one of the other ANBU.

Kakashi is tempted to make the obvious joke, but Raidou is just a little too close for comfort, and pissed-off goddesses have _nothing_ on Genma's overprotective partner. Kakashi lets the thought go with a wistful sigh and waits for Yugao to proceed him out the door before heading down the stairs himself.

* * *

><p>The Hokage Mansion is empty and echoing, almost morbid in its lack of occupation. It was built for Hashirama and his family, for a man with a wife and children and grandchildren, but Kakashi is alone. He uses a handful of rooms out of the many standing open, kitchen and office and sitting room and bedroom, but he always feels a little like a thief, slipping in and squatting where he doesn't fit and isn't wanted.<p>

Because there's no one watching, no one to impress or awe or be polite to for the good of the village, Kakashi sighs gustily and flops back onto the ridiculously uncomfortable couch, hiding a wince as his spine immediately protests. He's getting old, as much as he doesn't want to face it. Shinobi always seem to die young; those who can make it past middle age tend to be like the Sandaime, or Tsunade—awe-inspiring and breathtaking in their power. Kakashi doesn't delude himself into thinking he's either of those things. Powerful, yes, and more than able to hold his own, but he's not…

Kakashi snorts. He's not a Hokage, not really. A placeholder, stuck into the position because Tsunade is too old and Naruto is too young. Everyone knows it, Kakashi more than most, but he had accepted the assignment regardless, because it was his duty and Kakashi knows duty. He has since he was six years old. There is no one better suited to hold the village together until Naruto can take the reins, and so Kakashi wears the hat he never wanted, plays diplomat even though he's terrible at it, and waits for the _real_ Hokage to get out of his teens so Kakashi can finally retire.

They respect him, of course. They bow and smile and wish him well, but Kakashi knows the truth of it, knows and hates it. Were he an ounce less devoted, an inch less masochistic, he'd have told them exactly where to stick the hat and all the ceremony that went with it. But instead he had looked at the Hokage's desk, at Tsunade's sympathetic smile, at the pictures of her predecessors on the walls, and said _yes._

Because Obito wanted the position. Because it was the dream of a cheerful, kindhearted, loyal boy who died and went mad and then saved them all and was killed for it.

(Sometimes, when the nights are especially dark and long, Kakashi lies awake in bed and imagines a world where Obito hadn't saved him, either from the cave-in or from Kaguya, and tries to believe that it wouldn't have been better that way.)

He's not like he once was. There's no overwhelming guilt, no unwavering devotion to a collection of faded ghosts. Kakashi looks around himself and _sees_, sees his people and his team and his friends, and it's…good. It could definitely be far worse, and Kakashi has been a shinobi long enough to know when to count his blessings. There's nothing he wants desperately to change, but that's hardly the same as saying he has no regrets. He has so many regrets that they can't be counted, from the smallest things right up to the biggest, but regrets are by their very nature already part of the past. They can't be changed, and at this point Kakashi knows better than to dwell on them.

Most days, what he has is enough.

(Not always, but isn't that the same for everyone?)

It seems like the worst sort of irony, that he has more reason than ever before to visit the Memorial. All of those who came back to life are dead again, and those who were never really dead are now the same. Everyone he has ever lost, from his mother right down to Obito for the second time, has a name engraved upon the stone, and perhaps that says something about their world, that of the handful of close friends and family Kakashi has the majority of them are dead, and died in action. Died too soon, too late, for good reasons or bad, but they died all the same.

Kakashi…regrets.

_If I had been faster,_ he thinks. _If I had been better. If I had opened my eyes, if I had seen, if I had looked past myself and my own hurt, what would have happened then?_

He closes his eyes, leans his head back against the couch, and—

Vertigo. Strange, sliding pixels, like a water-warped computer screen attempting to create a functional picture, and suddenly Kakashi is looking at the outside of the Hokage's Mansion, through the window at the back of a silvery head.

At _his own_ head.

There are no words to do justice to his bewilderment.

Kakashi opens his eyes, blinking as the other image fades—seen with both eyes, this time, rather than the single eye he's had this happen with before, and that makes no sense, either, but _nothing_ about this situation does—and stands. There's no killing intent, no taste of aggression or threat to the air despite the weight of someone's attention on him, and Kakashi strides boldly across the room, in plain view of the windows. A little voice that manages to sound like Genma's bellows at him for caution, but Kakashi has long had practice ignoring his common sense and forges on regardless, throwing open the double doors and stepping out onto the second floor balcony.

The attention never wavers, and Kakashi looks straight out at the tall, spreading peach tree growing in the middle of the garden. The ANBU perched comfortably on one of the branches stares right back, apparently unconcerned at being caught out in the open. It's a man, not overly tall unless Kakashi misses his guess, with shaggy dark hair and a dog mask. The mask is familiar, even from this side of the porcelain; Kakashi wore the same kind for over ten years.

Kakashi's sharp eyes are just able to make out the dark shadow lying on the wide limb beside him. A spear or staff, most likely, and together those are more than enough clues to know who this stranger is.

"I hear you're the one responsible for saving my life earlier," he drawls, crossing his arms on top of the wrought iron railing and leaning forward casually.

The man just watches him for a long moment—so long that Kakashi thinks he isn't going to answer at all. Then, just when the Copy-Nin is mentally switching tracks, the ANBU shifts slightly, settles more comfortably against the tree, and says blandly, "I wouldn't have wanted to interrupt your paperwork, Hokage-sama. I'm sure you have quite the backlog."

Entirely despite himself, Kakashi blinks. That was…an insult, if a subtle one. Most ANBU—outside of those, like Genma and Raidou, who knew him as a brat—are properly subservient and awestruck. Those who aren't Kakashi can count on one hand, and number among his closest friends as well. And that voice…

It's familiar. Very familiar, but at the same time ever so slightly off. Kakashi narrows his eyes warily, wondering if this would be a good time to go for some of the kunai hidden in the decorative curls of metal making up the railing. Because shinobi are trained _extensively_ to recognize concealed threats, and to be able to identify comrades working undercover. Kakashi has had decades of experience, and he's inclined to trust his gut when it tells him something isn't quite right with the world.

It doesn't matter that he can't identify a motive. The fact that something is off is more than enough to put him on edge.

But the stranger makes no move beyond tipping his head back to look up at the spreading branches above him. Kakashi stares at him, and he looks away, and Kakashi can't feel anything more threatening from him than a vague preoccupation. It's…disconcerting.

Kakashi can handle outright threats. He can deal with subtle attacks, because even then, the driving factor is clear. Hate or love or money or revenge—those he can understand, and withstand.

But this man—not an ANBU, regardless of what his tattooed shoulder and mask say—seems to feel none of that, seems to be fending off these attacks with no reason that Kakashi can pick out, and it's very close to worrying.

The stranger glances at Kakashi one last time, then rises smoothly to his feet on the gnarled branch, staff in hand. Kakashi tenses, brain ready for an attack despite what his instincts tell him, but the man simply flips one hand in a halfhearted wave and vanishes in a swirl of leaves.

Nevertheless, Kakashi has no doubt that he'll be back.

* * *

><p>"I still don't understand why we're doing this," Obito mutters to his ghostly companion, hardly bothering to keep his voice low. He waves a hand to make a stand of trees reach down and swallow the intrepid assassins trying to get a drop on Kakashi this time. "These people are all <em>incompetent<em>. And have I mentioned I hate the smug bastard?"

Rin laughs at him, because of course she does. _No you don't_, she tells him, and that's…well. True, unfortunately, but then Rin has always, _always_ been able to see right through him, and never more so than when he doesn't want her to.

Still, that doesn't mean he has to _admit_ it.

"He's a prick," Obito points out, shifting his glare to the still figure of the Copy-Nin where he stands in front of the Memorial Stone. "And—and he's a _prick_. You have awful taste. And so do half the women in Konoha."

_Obito_, Rin scolds, though she still sounds amused. _That's not a nice thing to say. He cried for you, you know. Both times you died._

And that—that makes something low in Obito's stomach burn. Gratitude and guilt in equal measure, shot through with regret and fondness, thankfulness and admiration, that Kakashi can still _like_ him after all he's done.

His feelings for Kakashi have always been complicated. Kakashi was the genius, the prodigy, Minato's pride and joy. He was the emotionally wounded, handsome jerk with a bleeding human heart that every teenage girl loved to fantasize about fixing, and not even grounded, sensible Rin was immune. Obito could never understand it, that they could look at Kakashi and see something worthwhile, while they looked at Obito himself and only saw a talentless clown. Two masks, but only one registered.

Perhaps one of the things he always hated most was that he and Kakashi weren't actually all that different, where their backgrounds were concerned. Both orphans, both marked with shame—Sakumo's for Kakashi, and for Obito his own lack of Uchiha temperament—both weighed down by legacies too big for them. Obito was trying to live up to the clan he so desperately wanted to be part of, and Kakashi was trying to live down his father's suicide. It was their ways of handling the pressure that differed: Kakashi closed himself off, and Obito acted the fool, because then if people were laughing at him he could just pretend they were laughing _with _him, and that was a thousand times easier to bear.

Even when they were at their very worst together, Obito always wanted to be Kakashi's friend.

He sighs and reaches up to rub his hands over his face, only to hit porcelain instead of skin and grimace. Because he's still that stupid clown-boy, isn't he? That boy who only wanted people to look at him, the _real_ him, and not through him the way everyone except Rin did. But most of all he wanted _Kakashi_ to look at him, to acknowledge him, to see that there was something worthwhile hidden away behind bright smiles and goggles and immature posturing. That the boy who tripped and choked on candy and couldn't even manage a Grand Fireball jutsu was a valuable teammate, someone who could be depended on, a _friend_.

But Kakashi never had, not until those very last moments.

But Kakashi _had_, in those very last moments.

And afterwards, whenever Obito slipped back into Konoha, the odds were good that he'd find Kakashi at the Memorial, talking to him. The first time, he'd been utterly floored, left gaping and nearly trembling, because _Kakashi called Obito his best friend_. Kakashi _called him a hero_. Obito had very nearly hated him, because Rin was dead by his hand, but Kakashi was talking to Obito's name on the stone like it was _special_ to him, like Obito had _mattered_ as more than just his dead-last teammate. And that was…

It was everything Obito had ever wanted, and he'd gotten it a few months too late to change anything.

That's the story of his life, though, isn't it?

_Obito_, Rin whispers urgently, and Obito snaps his head up, automatically scanning his surroundings. A flicker of motion there, in the treetops, and he's already moving as the shinobi launches herself into the air, safely out of the reach of what subtle mokuton he's been allowing himself. A flip, a whirl, and she draws a pair of long, thin daggers as she descends towards Kakashi's _stupid, oblivious head_.

The ANBU guards are present, but Obito hardly spares them a thought. They're watching the perimeter, giving their Hokage privacy as he mourns his fallen friends, and even if a few are close enough to step in they haven't yet. That's as much of an invitation as Obito needs. He snatches up his shakujo, flips out of the tree, and hurtles himself feet-first at the assassin. They collide in midair, barely a yard above Kakashi's ridiculous hair, but Obito has more force behind his jump and knocks her away. He and kunoichi tumble to the side, and Obito only just manages to turn his fall into a steady landing. The assassin isn't so lucky, and hits the ground like a sack of meat with a yelp and a groan.

Kakashi glances over at them with studied disinterest, then glances back to the Memorial, and doesn't move.

Obito is going to _kill him_. It will be messy and bloody and _gloriously therapeutic_.

With twin cries of mixed alarm and indignation, two ANBU spring out of the shadows, weapons drawn. Obito recognizes Namiashi Raidou's poisoned black sword and decides he's hung around long enough. Grabbing the assassin by the collar, he pulls her up from the ground and hurls her right into Raidou's arms, then offers a mocking salute and dives back into the trees.

And if he _accidentally _manages to whack Kakashi over the head with his shakujo on his way past, well. He's in a hurry. Even Rin can't fault him for that.

There's another shout, this time more offense than anything else, and multiple people give chase. But, like before, the mokuton user isn't on duty, and Obito lets one of the larger trees swallow him without hesitation.

"Happy now?" he mutters at Rin, and she laughs.

_I suppose that's progress,_ she allows, and then refuses to explain what she means, no matter how Obito nags or pleads.

* * *

><p>"I hate you. I hate you so much. If I could <em>strangle you<em> without ending up in solitary for the rest of my life, I would do so _gleefully_, Hokage-sama, do you hear me?"

"I think everybody in Fire Country heard you," Yamato mutters, though—predictably—not loud enough for Genma to catch it. Kakashi is surrounded by _cowards_.

Granted, Genma's getting his crazy eyes back, and Kakashi had kind of thought that only happened on week-long missions with no sleep and suicidal odds. His uniform is wrinkled, there are ink smudges on one cheek, and tufts of hair are sticking up from beneath the skewed bandana. Notably, Raidou slinked off several hours ago with a handful of completely transparent excuses, and hasn't returned since.

_Surrounded by cowards._ Really, Kakashi passively loathes them all.

Rubbing absently at the lump the stranger gave him—which, _ow_, and Kakashi thought the bastard was supposed to be on his side—Kakashi shifts his icepack a little and studies his two commanders. While Genma is more obviously showing signs of stress, Yamato isn't exactly looking as fresh as a daisy, either. He's got bags under his eyes that made Naruto scream when he caught sight of them, and he's quite a bit paler than normal, slumped back against the wall in a way Kakashi would take for languid if he wasn't familiar with Yamato's usual stick-straight posture.

"Maa, you had it under control," Kakashi dismisses with a wave of his hand, just to watch Genma twitch.

"That's the thing, Hokage-sama," Yamato says grimly, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching a little more. "We didn't."

The blunt honesty is something Kakashi should have expected; after all, Yamato has never been one to hide his own failings from superiors. It's the main reason Kakashi made him ANBU Commander when the position opened. He trusts Yamato explicitly, and has for years now.

Genma sighs, running a hand over his head, then grimacing and pulling his bandana completely off. His brown hair swings forward around his face, and he brushes his fingers through it absently. "He's right," the tokujo agrees. "She got past our perimeter, and if the bastard hadn't jumped in when he did, we'd have missed her entirely. These people are getting better, and you'll have to excuse me if the fact that your last line of defense is a stranger no one can identify doesn't comfort me."

"Tell me something I don't know," Kakashi mutters, because he's heard variations of this same lecture every day for the past two weeks, and it's getting old.

Had he been paying attention, he likely would have seen the unholy light kindle in Genma's eyes in enough time to abort the conversation. However, since Kakashi is fully occupied resettling his icepack on the goose-egg the stranger so kindly left him, he misses it.

"Something you don't know, hmm?" Genma taps a finger over his lips, and then says blandly, "I once played tonsil hockey with Gai. It's still one of the better kisses I've ever gotten."

Kakashi chokes, suddenly lightheaded at the horror of that mental image, and Yamato yelps and falls over.

"_What_?" he demands, voice nearly a squeak.

Genma looks as self-satisfied as a particularly smug cat, and perches on the edge of Kakashi's desk with his arms crossed and one brow raised. "What?" he asks with faux innocence. "Kissing your genin teammate is practically a rite of passage. And my only other option was _Ebisu_, okay? Besides, Gai is—"

Yamato winces and holds up a hand, cutting him off there. "Stop. _Please_. We have _all_ heard your dissertation on Gai's brilliance. Many times, because you are secretly a _mother hen_ in a shinobi uniform. But that doesn't change the fact that you _kissed Gai_."

Genma opens his mouth.

"And if you did more than that, we_ don't want to know_," Yamato adds hurriedly. "For god's sake, Genma, we _shared a barracks_ with the two of you!"

Entirely unruffled, Genma settles back with a faint smirk. "Wimps," he says archly, but thankfully lets it go. The damage has been done, however, and Kakashi winces and rubs at his temples, wondering if he'll ever be able to look either Genma or Gai in the face again without seeing flashes of…that. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised, because Genma likes unique people, likes making friends, and likes sex, and whenever he can get away with combining the three, he's as happy as a clam.

Kakashi tries to add Gai to that equation and gags a little, then firmly shuts the thought away.

"How did the bastard get through the perimeter guards?" he asks, returning to their original subject. Maybe someday they'll have a better name for the ANBU impersonator, but for now, _the_ _bastard_ has stuck, and serves admirably. "I thought you had at least two Hyuuga on shift."

"We did," Genma acknowledges, trading glances with Yamato. "Three, as a matter of fact. I've talked with all of them, and they can't figure it out any more than we can. Either he was already there and we missed him in our preliminary sweeps, or he just spontaneously appeared there after we fell into formation. Your guess is as good as ours."

_Spontaneously appeared._

Kakashi just…stops. He freezes in place, remembering the strange vertigo and double-vision he felt after the first time, the thinly veiled dig at his procrastination when he confronted the stranger. Remembers the faint growl as the stranger passed him earlier, the way the shakujo swung unerringly at his skull with just enough force to raise a lump, and that familiar-unfamiliar voice.

But—

But it's happened before, hasn't it? More than once, in this case. More than _twice_, even, and that's…

It's impossible, but then, Obito has always, _always_ been impossible, hasn't he?

"-sama. Hokage-sama!"

Kakashi blinks, dropping the icepack from his head and looking up at the Guard Platoon's commander. Genma is watching him with narrowed eyes and an assessing expression. His gaze catches Kakashi's and holds it, and something shifts, like surprise and then a sudden understanding. He nods faintly, but doesn't say anything with several ANBU guards still in the room.

At times like this, Kakashi blesses all his stars for surrounding him with people like Genma, old friends who understand him better than any others. He offers a faint smile, which Genma returns with one of his own and a dismissive flick of his hand.

"You're stressed, Hokage-sama," he says, glancing over at Yamato, who inclines his head. "And the porn withdrawals are effecting your brain. More to the point, _we're_ stressed and in desperate need of an evening off. I'm making an executive decision as your chief bodyguard and telling you to go home for the night."

"I'll put our replacements on duty," Yamato seconds, pushing away from the wall, and they must really be feeling the strain of trying to catch the bastard if they're _both_ voluntarily agreeing to take even a few hours off. "Go home, Kakashi. Maybe if we all sleep on it, we can come up with a plan to catch this asshole."

Somehow, Kakashi has his doubts, especially if it's who he thinks it is, but he studies the two commanders for a brief moment and then nods his concurrence. A large part of being Hokage, he's found, is learning when it's better to give in, and this is clearly one of those times. "Go," he orders, rising from his desk. "I'll use Kamui to get home. You're both off as of right now. Get some rest."

The warping spiral pulls him away before either man can protest, and Kakashi lands in the echoing silence of the other dimension a bare heartbeat later. He straightens slowly, looking around and half-expecting Obito to be leaning against one of the cubes, but he isn't. There's only the strange half-darkness, the odd, carrying hush, and not a single hint of movement anywhere.

And then, with a faint glow, a figure steps out of nothingness and smiles up at him, brown eyes warm. Kakashi feels his breath catch in his chest, and something like guilt or grief or maybe even joy kindles in his gut as he chokes out, "Rin."

It could be a hallucination, or a mental attack. She's see-through, if only faintly, and still looks like she did before she died, bright and sweet and calmly determined, with a spine of steel and no patience for stupidity. And she's smiling at him, just as she always did, a little girl with no future but all the kindness in the world.

It feels real, though.

He wants it to be real. Wants it desperately, dreadfully. _Needs_ it the same way he _needs_ to know if his mysterious guard is really Obito, back from the dead yet again.

_Hello, Kakashi_, she answers, taking a half-step forward and waving cheerfully. Her voice doesn't echo, even though the faintest noise usually does here. _I'd give you a hug, but I think I'd just go through you. _

Kakashi reaches for her anyways, couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to. Rin's smile turns faintly wistful, but she stretches out a hand in answer. Their fingers brush, and hers waver like mist, completely insubstantial. It feels a little like watching her die all over again, and Kakashi has to squeeze his eyes shut and focus on his breathing for fear of losing control.

_Sorry,_ Rin murmurs, and Kakashi shakes his head.

"No," he sighs, and if it's rough with the edge of tears, he thinks that can be excused just this once. "No, you warned me. But what are you doing here? Am I dying and you've come to lead me to the other side?"

Rin giggles, bright and happy, as though everything bad that happened to her is so much dust now. Maybe it is. Kakashi wasn't dead for long, that one time Pein killed him. _No, silly!_ she chides. _And I don't think it would be _me_ you saw, in that case. I'm not the one you were in love with._

Kakashi winces, but it's true. After all, he's spent the last two decades entirely focused on one person alone, on being as close to them as humanly possible, and given Obito's actions in the Fourth World War, that hasn't changed. Again Obito sacrificed himself for Kakashi, and that's enough to justify it. After all, there's only so long one can obsess without emotions shifting in a way that attempts to make sense out of the fixation, and Kakashi's did just that. He fell in love with the memory of a boy who died for him, and then with the reality of a broken man whose heart won out over the darkness inside him.

"But Obito can't come to get me, even if I am dying," he says carefully, testing a theory, "because he's alive right now, isn't he? He's the one in the mask."

She beams at him, stepping back even as her form wavers like light on a shifting mirror. _Maybe_, she answers, tipping her head mischievously. _You'll just have to catch him and find out, won't you? Good luck!_ Another step back and she waves, then turns and darts away, image breaking apart and scattering into the shadows.

Kakashi is alone again, surrounded by echoing darkness, with only the double-time beat of his heart to show for their strange meeting.

_Obito_, he thinks, and closes his eyes, slumping back against the nearest cube. One shaking hand rakes through his hair, and Kakashi laughs, wild and overjoyed, because there's a knot on his head and a powerful stranger with a shakujo driving his ANBU insane, and only one person who could be responsible. One person who _isn't dead_, or who _came back_, and that's all Kakashi has ever wanted in this world.

He's gotten more second chances than anyone has a right to, but he's greedy. He's a greedy, selfish asshole, and he's going to seize this one with both hands and never let it go.


End file.
